How about applying your analysis to simply lifting your arm "using the hara"?

I always lift my arm using the hara, and so do you and so does everyone else. The arm rotating against gravity creates rotational moment against the body, which I instinctively counter with a nearly instantaneous and imperceptible shift of my center to make it do work. Hence, my thoughts about the method of virtual work.

Conversely, if I apply my center motion first, in the same axis I can make my arm rise by the application of the reverse rotational moment, and without any use of the arm muscles except as connecting ligaments or springs. This is basic torifune (rowing) exercise. What I am saying is that aikido is merely the development of that basic function to more refined and precise ends, and made capable of intuitive adaptation.

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Mike Sigman wrote:

Wouldn't that be a better practical start? Or Tohei's "ki tests"?

Wouldn't know, among the few aikido flavors I have never tried is Ki Society.

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Mike Sigman wrote:

And of course, ultimately you're left with that ideal of "stillness in motion"... i.e., the movements of articulated joints around axes is not the question anymore... to analyse.

A vector without magnitude (or infinitesimal magnitude, or even mere potential) still has orientation that describes the force system or field in play. An electromagnetic field is clearly oriented and perceptible even if there is zero magnitude of current flow. If my body and mind become capable of inferring an infintesimally small magnitude along the vector field, that is enough, according to the method of virtual work, to decipher the force system and resultant, and work can be applied in accordance with that information, in a plane that the attacker is incapable of resisting directly, and because he perceives no direct resistance to the attack, the information that the attacker's system is set up to signal a need alter or shift his attack is not present.

One of the reasons, it seems to me that aikido is so effective is that it relies on a fundamental retraining of the body and mind in ways that cannot be easily short-circuited for purposes of adapting by a attacker who is not similarly trained. BY analogy it is, in effect, much like a rewiring that creates AI architecture, than a defined function software patch; a modifcation to the operating system, if you will.

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Mike Sigman wrote:

It appears to me that you're trying to apply a mechanical analysis to a strategy, at the moment, and I'm not sure a method of movement is itself the stratagy or tactic.

I am suggesting that aikido is beyond strategy and tactic, as it is beyond timing. Although effective in practice, as the economists say, it nevertheless is not possible in theory. Obviously, the problem lies with the theory.

Aikido is as much an information processing system as it is a strategic or tactical catalogue of physical techniques. It seems to be inadequately described by more conventional terms of mechnical understanding. Terms describing information systems generally also seem to breakdown in applcaition to aikido practice becasue of its ephemeral nature.

Aikido is almost unique in comparison to any other art on these two grounds, and distinguished very much from even its own lineage in Daito-ryu, primarily because of the innovative aspects of takemusu (creative technique) and ki musubi (connecting energy) (Taijiquan being a very possible and strong exception to this statement.) Thus, I am reaching for different approaches to the understanding of what it accomplishes to broaden the applicaiton of Western sensibilities to its refinement and expansion.

All of O-Sensei's imagery must be considered in its context, as the man was a very serious person. Tohaeis Four Principles are useful, too, but likewise are out of context in the West and thus require serious conceptual translation, not merely lanugage transcription. Despite the too-easy denigration of his mythological views by some from a Western reductionist perpective, they are part of a system of vital cultural information and he seriously intended that they impart that information within that tradition.

I take him as seriously as he meant to be taken. He seriously meant aikido to have the broadest possible reach and penetration around the world. It has gone far in the mode of people willing to adopt and invest themselves in its native context. It can go farther however, by truly "going native" in the West. We now inform the context of most of the world, for better or worse. The first step is to thoroughly understand the native concepts without reducing their their fullness to the contraints of our frames of reference. Then we can relate them to useful analogues in the Western tradition that provide a bsis for furtehr developemtn WITHIN our tradition. That way, we can begin to add their distinctivness to our own ...